1. Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure relates to printing and, in a particularly important example, to ink jet printheads.
2. Related Technology
There is a demand for digital printers having a printhead that extends across the full width of the printed page offering both high throughput and high print quality.
In an ink jet printer of this character, having the necessarily large number of closely spaced ink chambers and nozzles, there will always be a risk of failure of one or more nozzles, whether as a consequence of a manufacturing error or through nozzle blockage or other failures in use.
It will be possible to detect and discard manufactured printheads having even a single failed nozzle. However, because of the very large number of nozzles in each printhead, and because of the sophistication of the manufacturing techniques, such quality control measures would likely lead to an uneconomic manufacturing yield.
In use of the printhead, failure of even a single nozzle can lead to perceptible print artifacts, because of the spatial correlation of the artifact as the printed substrate is indexed past the printhead.